In the state of the art, apparatuses for injecting brine to meat materials are well-known, units for carrying out one or more massage-rest consecutive treatments having a predetermined duration and packing machines which include stuffing machines, stapling machines, dosing machines, thermoforming machines and the like, by means of which plants for treating and packing meat material are installed. Document U.S. Pat. No. 4,791,705, granted to this applicant, discloses a machine for treating and macerating meat, that is to say, for submitting the meat material to massage-rest consecutive treatments, provided with automatic loading and unloading and provided with a computer centralized control, marketed by Metalquimia, S.A. with the brand Thermocomputer. Said machine includes a rotatory drum which has at an axial end a loading-unloading mouth provided with a door with adjusting and closing devices. The drum is supported and guided by a frame, which is hinged at one end with respect to a part of the fixed structure, so that the frame, and with it the drum, can adopt an inclined position towards one or the other side or keep an horizontal position. A moving structure surrounds the drum, said structure being provided with a step-by-step travel on which a series of containers are mounted for pieces of meat material. In front of said drum loading-unloading mouth there is a loading device capable to turn a load contained in a container down a hopper arranged to load the drum. For unloading the drum there exists means for lifting the rear part thereof so that its contents is unloaded through the loading-unloading mouth within an empty container submitted to weigh control.
Most of these machines are capable of a nonstop operation. However, the meat material produced by a machine must be accumulated within containers which are hand moved or by means of mechanical trucks up to the following machine for feeding it, for which a great number of operators and a large space for containers travels are required. The different machines have different production capabilities and in addition they must be thoroughly cleaned each given number of cycles or working hours, or when starting the treatment of a new type of meat material the conditions of which are incompatible with those of the preceding one, therefore frequently it happens that an excess of meat material is accumulated from a machine because of a temporary incapability of the following one for admitting it, or that a machine must stay stopped because of a temporary incapability of production of the preceding machine. This produces loss of productivity in the plant and in addition it obliges to a complex and expensive programming of the times of production of the different units and of accumulation and travel of containers of semifinished meat material between them.
Therefore, an object of this invention is to contribute with a plant for treating and packing meat material in which the different units are coupled to each other for a nonstop operation, linked by units for accumulating, loading, unloading and/or feeding semifinished meat material and in which every unit is controlled and coordinated by central control electronic means.
Another object of the invention is to contribute with a plant for nonstop treating and packing meat material in which the operating cycles of the different units are controlled and coordinated so that times for cleaning each unit are available while at least one of the remaining units is operating.